A clear exposition of the strength of the stories of the Creation and the Fall, of their value for the contemporary world. Very insightful. Very helpful. Written by a man who understands the modern world. Written and translated in an understandable way. Not highly technical in roughly 80% of its text. These were originally four homilies, which may contribute to their conversational and lyrical tone. They are quite a contrast to the stern Germanic stereotype which dominates the popular caricature of the author.
It is important to understand that, in order to explain opposing viewpoints, sometimes he speaks in the voice of a wrong-headed opinion for quite some time. A couple times I found myself thinking, why is he saying this, and then realizing, oh, he's giving voice to a different viewpoint.
Some quotes from the first homily:
“These words with which the Holy Scripture begins always have the effect on me of the solemn tolling of a great old bell, which stirs the heart from afar with its beauty and dignity and gives it an inkling of the mystery of eternity.”
“Its purpose ultimately would be to say one thing, God created the world. The world is not a chaos of opposed forces; nor is it the dwelling of demonic powers from which human beings must protect themselves. The sun and the moon are not deities that rule over them, and the sky that stretches over their heads is not full of mysterious and adversary divinities. Rather all of this comes from one power, from God's eternal Reason, which became in the Word the power of creation. Thus insofar as human beings realized that the world came from the Word, they ceased to care about the gods and demons. In addition the world was freed so that reason might lift itself up to God and so that human beings might approach this God fearlessly. In this Word they experienced the true enlightenment that reveals to them that there is only one power everywhere and that we are in his hands. This is the living God, and this same power which created the earth and the stars and which bears the whole universe is the very one whom we meet in the Word of Holy Scripture. In this Word we come into contact with the real primordial force of the world and with the power that is above all powers.”
“Even today faith in creation is not unreal; even today it is reasonable; even from the perspective of the data of natural sciences it is the “better hypothesis,” offering a fuller and better explanation than any of the other theories. Faith is reasonable. The reasonableness of creation derives from God's Reason, and there is no other really convincing explanation. The reasonableness of the universe provides us with access to God's Reason… Therefore we must not in our own day conceal our faith in creation. We may not conceal it, for only if it is true that the universe comes from freedom, love, and reason, and that these are the real underlying powers, can we trust one another, go forward into the future, and live as human beings. God is the Lord of all things because he is their creator, and only therefore can we pray to him. For this means that freedom and love are not ineffectual ideas but rather that they are sustaining forces of reality.”
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